


Ladies in Towers

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [81]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Eldritch, F/F, Female Hunter (Bloodborne) - Freeform, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:13:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27965105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: The Huntress has pledged herself to Queen Annalise, and so she sets out to quest in Her honour.
Relationships: Annalise the Queen of the Vilebloods/The Hunter (Bloodborne), Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower/Annalise the Queen of the Vilebloods, The Hunter/Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower
Series: One-Shot [81]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282
Kudos: 14





	Ladies in Towers

**Author's Note:**

> unedited.

There’s discordant madness singing in the air, and the Huntress isn’t entirely certain if that means she’s winning, or losing. If she’s winning then it certainly doesn’t feel like it, and if she’s losing then she’s never been so happy about it. Maybe _she_ just doesn’t feel right anymore. Perhaps she can’t. It remains a possibility that all the endless death, rebirth, and the intervening horror have destroyed her fragile mind. Or, maybe, she’s simply been insane from the start. 

Maybe all of _this_ is just the madness of a tormented soul.

The Huntress isn’t entirely certain, but she is _reasonably_ sure that she doesn’t care.

Never before has she tasted ecstasy like this. She’s seen wondrous beauty, magnificent heights, and found herself so uplifted that the very _Gods_ were whispering in her ears. But this? This is a _treasure._ This is _magnificent._ This is what the old Church used to crow about; this is what the Pthumerians worshipped.

Blood, and the constant upwelling from a shattered heart.

\---

Maria is gorgeous despite the wicked sounds from far below them and the layer of dust covering her every limb. A blood-drunk huntress who’d been addled by regret. Her form and function are pristine; the prim clothing that Maria wears is from another era entirely, and yet so familiar that the Huntress’s heart beats slowly. It is fanciful despite its build, shorn close and allowing the woman to move or slice, to cut and winnow.

Maria’s bearing is grace and speed, and what she cannot land with brute force is bolstered by pure talent. It is a dance that impresses upon the Huntress just how _rare_ this is, just how powerful this _thing_ has become.

Deadly.

A corpse trained in form and function until everything had become second nature, and the aeons she’d spent within the Nightmare weren’t enough to dull her at all. If anything she seemed invigorated, _too_ awake. Almost as if she’d merely been napping, conserving her strength.

Unfortunately, the heat building within the Huntress’s loins is best left unattended. She has _orders_ now, and a Queen who will not be defied. Annalise was so very, _very_ specific in her instruction after all, and no matter what wonders Maria holds onto, the Huntress will not fail her Queen.

She _can’t._ She can’t even find it within herself to think those treasonous thoughts, not now, not since she’d revived Annalise with the ichor that the darkened God had wept. Annalise had given her a new purpose, a new _life._ Her own curiosity wasn’t above all else, not any longer. Not since that mere curiosity atop the broken castle had blossomed into an unending obsession.

To the Huntress’s endless amusement, it seemed that her Queen and Maria had a history together. A shared past, or perhaps just shared animosity and enmity. The Huntress was a purposeful servant now, a willing supplicant who’d tasted blood far more potent than any beast or ordinary Choir member. She was a vessel for the Queen’s revival, and a portion of that tarnished soul had burrowed deep inside the Huntress’s heart.

She was a dutiful Lady now, born again within the Dream.

Maria was a Lady too, though one kept away for far too long. A wayward charge that was connected with the Queen even if she didn’t want to be, resplendent in her own glory despite the shattering that had sent her deep within the Nightmare.

The Huntress struck, and savoured the blood pouring out.

\---

Transposing what was - _practically speaking_ \- an unliving shade through the world of the Nightmare, to the Dream, and off into the depths of Cainhurst Castle was a task that the Huntress hadn’t been sure she’d succeed in. It was a relatively simple matter to bring Maria to the point of near-un-death. One slash, two, dodging and parrying where she could until the time had come to strike out, and thrust her eager hand into the shattered ribcage of a woman who looked so pretty wearing red. The Huntress’s deaths had been eternal, but with each turn, she learned, adapted, and eventually overcame. From there she’d simply needed to study old runes and broken chalices, their abilities to transport all pulled out and repurposed.

But by all the horrid Gods did it _hurt._ She was wrenching through the world, through the thinness between, her eyes opened to the depths and something _monstrous_ watching as she passed, something that was familiar only because it had allowed the barest form of its essence into the _real_ world, the Night. Then it was over, almost instantaneous except the aeons with which she’d drifted. Her brain _itched_ when all was said and done, and then it passed.

Best not to think of things that _weren’t._

The body in her arms was on the ground almost immediately, retching and cursing as though she hadn’t had her heart squeezed near to death, not an hour or so prior. She pushed the Huntress away and fell again to the Huntress’s hands when she reached down and lifted her from the floor. The disorientation was hard enough on someone connected to the Dream; she had no idea how Maria was able to push her way through it. Did it matter? She knew that the woman was made of more potent stuff, built to last and more robust than she seemed.

No, she decided, it didn’t matter. What did matter was the heavy feeling of Maria in her arms, and the warmth now emanating from a body that had been - _until very recently_ \- quite dead. Maria’s cheeks were blossoming with pink and red, her heartbeat set anew. Her breath was hurried, stuttering through the pains of living once more, but strong enough to continue on. But the strength was flagging, and as the Huntress looked on, Maria began to sleep. Just as beautiful alive as dead, Maria slept on as the Huntress moved up, up, deeper into the Castle. Fluttering movements beneath the lids of her eyes were the only entertainment that Huntress could indulge in as she walked upstairs, through empty, ghostly hallways, and out onto the rooftops.

\---

Annalise was overflowing with rapturous joy when the Huntress returned. It seemed that passing from the Nightmare to the Dream, Dream back to the Night - _or some facsimile of reality that had a name the Huntress couldn’t remember_ \- had taken long enough for her Queen to become restless. _Antsy._ _Frayed._ But now that she’d returned with her charge in tow, Annalise was ecstatic, giddy with titters and broken laughter.

With curling fingers she’d bid the Huntress come closer, one finger curling and promising so very much.

Maria had yet to awake during their travel from downstairs to up, but the outpouring of energy from Annalise was more than enough to get the woman stirring in the Huntress’s grasp. Her breath was soft and slow, but building steadily. Her limbs were gangly and uncoordinated, but gradually gaining poise. 

Maria fell with a shiver, a gasp, rolling from the Huntress’s arms and onto the floor, body poised for an attack. She reached for her hip, her Rakuyo-

But - _to the Huntress’s delight, her feral grin splitting the distance between them_ \- Rakuyo wasn’t where it should have been. It was calling to Maria, indeed, but it was far off in the Dream. There was no getting it, no fighting for it, and here with the Queen and her lowborn Knight, Maria was helpless.

Just as Annalise had wanted.

\---

The first night guarding the door was the hardest. Logarius was dead, and in his stead, it fell to the Huntress to man the entrance and keep Maria locked inside. She couldn’t use any of her many knives or blades - _as they were forbidden before Annalise’s grace, and they would simply tempt Maria_ \- and so her most comfortable measure of suppression had been removed. There were other ways to keep the woman here though, the Huntress knew, and she resolved to keep to her task with all the grace and poise of a true jailor. Back when she’d been young and full of wiles, alive in ways that she wasn’t - _couldn’t be_ \- here, she’d managed to hold her own against steady boys much older than herself. They were stronger, bigger, meaner too. But she’d been smart, and quick, and soon enough they’d learned to never mess with the poor shepherd’s daughter, not unless they wanted scratches that gouged out eyes and kicks that meant they’d never wed. The Huntress was no mere waif, much more a monster, and Maria wasn’t half as terrifying as those boys had been.

But Maria was smarter; the Huntress would give her that.

The resurrected woman would act as if she were asleep, the feigned act only betrayed by the subtle twisting of her lips whenever she thought the Huntress wasn’t looking. The Huntress was, she _always_ was. She had no need of sleep, but she played with Maria and feigned it when she could, just to see what the woman would do. Maria, for her part, seemed to wait and watch, build courage before daring to strike. It was harsh, fast, and utterly untethered to mercy or restraint. Maria would dash forwards with her uncanny speed and attempt to fit past the Huntress on the way to the door, one hand lashing out in an attempt to snap her neck, or perhaps bash in her ribcage until she couldn’t breathe.

Maria never managed to make it out, though.

The Huntress would fall low and bend at the knees, her legs folding away as she centred herself on the attacker. Maria would go up, lifted and then redirected before falling back, gracelessly, to the floor. The Castle would shake around them as she sputtered, coughed, spat back blood and bile. Maria was not quite immortal in the same sense as the Huntress, but she was strong, and incredibly hard to damage. She held onto some form of un-death that kept her injuries at bay and healed her faster than any blood vial could. Whatever damage was too harsh to be healed by tenacity and mild healing alone could be mended with the few phials of Annalise’s blood that had been left with the Huntress for this purpose alone. Each shot would restore broken bone, heal the curving slices left by the Huntress’s claws, and set Maria’s head back atop her broken shoulders just in time for the next strike.

The Huntress had never had so much fun as this, despite how hard it was to stay on task. Even as her heart beat furiously within her chest, she loved it. It would only take a second for Maria to slip past her and out the door, and Annalise was nowhere to be found. The Queen was somewhere deep within the bowels of the Castle, and they both could feel her as she moved, ranging from blinding hate and anger to cooing love and joy from one second to the next. If Maria made it past the Huntress, she’d be free, or _mostly_ free. Maria could dart away into the forests, disappear into the City, or fall away and hide from this dream until it came to an end.

But the Huntress wouldn’t allow it.

_Couldn’t._

But she would reward it, time and time again, with a soft bite, lingering kiss, the press of her fingers against broken bone, her palm shining with new blood. She would reinvigorate Maria with what phials she needed, and then dip fingers into hidden folds, pinch stiff buds atop the woman’s chest, and relish the next attempt.

Queen Annalise was immortal here. So was the Huntress, in her own particular way.

Maria could try, try again until the Blood Moon had set and the Sun came up.

The Huntress would wait, and watch, and smile when she could.


End file.
